The NASCAR Nationwide Series takes to the air on ESPN2 Friday night at 9:30PM Eastern Time.
This week, Jerry Punch is off so Marty Reid will step-in to the play-by-play role with Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree alongside. Vince Welch will also step-over from the IRL coverage to report from pit road along with Jamie Little and Mike Massaro.
Allen Bestwick will anchor the coverage from the Infield Pit Studio. He will be joined by Brad Daugherty and Dale Jarrett for the pre-race show. Something else will be different this week as well.
NBA basketball is on ESPN2 at 7PM with the Cleveland Cavaliers taking on the Chicago Bulls. The live game is scheduled to end at 9:30PM and lead directly into a fifteen minute version of NASCAR Countdown.
The ESPN2 race coverage starts at 9:45PM and with live radio and other broadcast elements in place, the race itself should start as scheduled.
So, should basketball run long, ESPN Classic may again come into play as a network outlet for the Nationwide coverage. For those of you wondering what is on ESPN during that time it is Tiger Woods and friends playing in The Masters.
NASCAR fans should be on their toes and stay informed whenever a live event is scheduled immediately before a race on ESPN2. This season ESPN's NASCAR coverage has been much better, and the changes in both personnel and production have made the difference.
The one area where ESPN is still lacking is the the inability to present NASCAR racing in a protected timeslot on a regular basis. As we saw with the Busch Series last season, other live sports events greatly impacted this series.
Now that ESPN has solved the production and announcer issues, focusing on the on-air operational problems with this series as the season progresses is going to be very important.
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8 comments:
NASCAR Now is also supposed to be on ESPN2 live this afternoon at 4 PM.
I say *supposed to be* because I'd really like to know from ESPN why they keep choosing not to show the late night replay of NASCAR Now. It's one thing if a live event pre-empts/delays a program, but the NASCAR Now replay is plain old being pulled from the schedule for *non-live* events; it's happened three times within a week.
They did it last Wednesday and Thursday and last night a college hockey game ran over into NASCAR Now's timeslot of midnight ET/9 PT. Instead of beginning NN at 25 after the hour, they skipped it completely and went into a rerun of World Series of Poker. I waited through the game to watch NN, assuming since World Series of Poker is old, surely they would show the day's NASCAR Now instead. My mistake.
Last week when NN was skipped it was also so ESPN2 could go to a tape delayed program. They are putting the changes on their website schedule or listing the timeslot at "TBD"(I see this morning that last night's NN replay was already pulled off the schedule on the website). But that's too late for us who rely on our onscreen guides for watching or setting recording devices when they still list NN as the show in that timeslot.
I'd like to know if this is going to happen two or three times a week through the rest of the season. It would be unfortunate if that's the case.
There's no replay of the 4 PM NN tonight, but a new episode airs Saturday morning at 10 AM ET/7PT since the race is Saturday. No Sunday show this week.
Anon
I sometimes miss part of early NN (and have not committed to taping as they CHANGE THE TIME TOO MUCH??)
i tuned in twice late night and though my TW guide says NN, some half hour boxing show came on???? What is this rubbish?
NN is finally a decent show but we get NO REGULAR TIMESLOT for the early show and they often skip the re-air.
What's up with that ESPN??
I would like to know why a cable co. gives me espn- espn2 - and espn news why they didn't give me the classic channel too. I miss everything they put over on classic... this sucks.
The only NN I watch/record is the Monday show. I have given up the rest of the week. The second showing wasn't even on last night. Some other sports crap ran late. There was still time to show NN but, ESPN just had to show the poker game. Good grief.
I predict ( & hope) that Marty Reid will do a much improved job calling the race over the last one he did.
I also have missed 2 NN shows this wk, because I had no friggin' idea when they would be on or they were on against Trackside..:( I really wanted to see the follow-up to the drug testing situation. And if they post repeats & then don't-geez, way to piss off Nascar fans, ESPN.
The one area where ESPN is still lacking is the the inability to present NASCAR racing in a protected timeslot on a regular basis.
Why should the NNS get a protected timeslot? That is impossible for something that normally airs on Saturday afternoons. Way too much stuff going on.
Anon 8:17PM,
Before NASCAR came back to ESPN it did not experience these problems.
This is the Achilles Heel of ESPN.
They are unable to accomodate the current load of live programming that they have purchased on just two networks. Once the Fall football begins, things go absolutely nuts.
Last season, this included leaving a live Busch Series race during the invocation before the start. The race was completely dumped off TV because of two college football games that had been played in the same timeslots on ESPN and ESPN2 for over five years.
NASCAR has no place to go on Saturdays come football, and right now it is struggling with the current load of programming.
It is time for ESPN Classic to become ESPN3 and they better do it in a hurry.
JD
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